Whitehorse Daily Star: Man died after bulldozer rolled over

Roger Stuart and Stuart Placers Ltd. have each been found guilty on two charges stemming from the 2021 death of Richard “Red” Cull, 41, in a bulldozer rollover near a Dawson City-area placer mine.

By Mark Page on August 23, 2023

Roger Stuart and Stuart Placers Ltd. have each been found guilty on two charges stemming from the 2021 death of Richard “Red” Cull, 41, in a bulldozer rollover near a Dawson City-area placer mine.

In a recording of an Aug. 18 hearing where they had guilty pleas accepted by a territorial court judge, Stuart is heard choking back emotion while expressing his remorse to the court.

“I lost my best friend that day,” Stuart said. “Nothing’s gonna change that.”

Both parties had already pled guilty to the charges prior to the hearing.

The Crown is seeking combined penalties of $115,000 plus a 15-per-cent victim fine surcharge.

The defence is asking for $40,000 in penalties, also with the 15 per cent tacked on.

A decision on sentencing has yet to be made by the judge.

According to an agreed statement of facts in the case, Cull was killed on April 23, 2021 when a D-10N Caterpillar bulldozer he was driving rolled off the side of an access road to the mine’s shop, flattening the cab with Cull inside.

The accident took place in an area known as the switchbacks, the top of which is about three to five kilometres from the mine’s shop.

The bulldozer slid off the road about one kilometre from the shop.

The machine was lacking required safety equipment at the time, including rollover protection and ice-gripping equipment. It weighed 50,000 kilograms, far exceeding the minimum requirements for the rollover protection.

The morning of the accident, Stuart and Cull were waiting for their new bulldozer to be delivered to the top of the switchbacks on a lowbed truck.

The truck driver was late, so the pair went out looking for him. They finally got in phone contact with the driver, who said he was heading up an area called Eureka Hill.

After waiting for some time on the top of the hill, they drove down to find the trucker had unloaded the bulldozer and was heading up the hill in the machine after being unable to drive up in the loaded truck.

The truck was driven up separately, where they re-loaded the bulldozer onto the truck and headed to the top of the switchbacks.

From the switchbacks, Stuart and Cull had discussed having the dozer delivered all the way to the shop, but decided it would take too long, and they thought it better to unload the machine and have Cull drive it down.

Much of the dozer’s safety equipment had already been delivered to the shop to be installed there, so Cull would be driving the machine down the somewhat icy road without rollover protection and ice-gripping equipment.

Stuart headed to the shop, where, after some time he called Cull, who said it was “going good.”

Cull should have been about 15 minutes away at that point, so when he didn’t arrive, Stuart went looking for him.

As he drove up to a creek crossing, he couldn’t see Cull or the bulldozer, but could hear it running.

Starting back, he saw a patch of ice on the road, where the machine had slid off.

Running down the embankment toward the sound of the running engine, he noticed it didn’t sound right.

Finally seeing the bulldozer across a creek and being unable to get to it, Stuart went for help.

He and another employee got a different machine to push a trail to the bulldozer, where they found Stuart’s close friend and long-time employee Cull dead in the cab.

The bulldozer had rolled down a 70-foot slope, slid in reverse for another 223 feet, dropped down another 180 feet, possibly rolling and going end-over-end, before finally sliding an additional 230 feet and coming to rest on the other side of a creek.

The machine was being operated without safety equipment, including a rollover protective structure, ice cleats, a ripper shank – which scores icy roadways to provide grip – and a front blade.

The roadway was “generally good” at the time but had icy patches due to a spring freeze-thaw cycle. At the time of the accident, the temperature was minus 8 C.

Both sides agreed upon this description of events.

They also agreed some of the safety equipment could have been taken up the hill and installed on-site before the dozer was driven down.

And another machine could have cleared the ice off the road.

Since the accident, Stuart and his employees have voluntarily re-routed this road and blocked off the portion where the accident took place, building a new section in the process.

It is also in the record that regular inspections were conducted at the mine site in 2012, 2014 and 2020, finding only minor non-compliance according to the safety officers’ opinion.

As Cull’s supervisor, Stuart pled guilty to knowingly permitting a worker to operate mobile equipment which was unsafe or could create an undue hazard to a worker and for failing to ensure work done under his direction and control was performed without undue risk.

The company, which Stuart is part owner of, pled guilty to failing to take all reasonable precautions and implement measures to prevent an occupational injury by eliminating hazards and for failing to have a rollover protective structure installed on a dozer weighing over 700 kilograms.

The Crown and defence now only differ in the severity of punishment they are seeking.

Both sides noted that the small size of the company – defence counsel Luke Faught said it profited about $200,000 last year – meant the fine should be reduced somewhat.

They differed in that Crown counsel Lee Kirkpatrick argued to take into account the seriousness and degree of fault, while the defence argued the quick guilty plea and Stuart’s remorse should be taken into account.

Faught read a statement from Cull’s own daughter about how his death has impacted Stuart.

“Mr. Stuart is already paying the biggest price of all, and he’s living with it for the rest of his life,” said Faught, quoting the letter.

Faught is counsel to both the company and Stuart himself, and he argued for a $10,000 penalty for each count.

The Crown argued for a $40,000 penalty for the one of the counts against the company, and $25,000 for each of the other three counts.

Kirkpatrick argued the penalties sought are already below the maximum and that some of the offences have since had their maximum penalties upgraded, showing the increasing seriousness to which the legislature treats these offences.

The sentencing decision will be handed down by the judge in a future hearing, to be scheduled later this week.